You do not need Arabic to travel in Egypt. In hotels, restaurants, shops and at the archaeological sites, enough people work in English that you will always find a way through, and if you travel with a guide the language question disappears entirely. What a few words do is change the temperature of every exchange you have. Say shukran instead of thank you and watch the face across from you: the shopkeeper slows down, the driver relaxes, the man selling scarves stops selling for a second and talks to you instead.

This is a working phrasebook for Egyptian Arabic, the dialect people actually speak, not the formal Arabic most courses teach. Every phrase below carries the Arabic script as well as a romanisation, so when your pronunciation fails you can hold up your phone and point.

The ten words that do most of the work

If you learn nothing else on the flight over, learn these. Between them they cover greeting, thanking, agreeing, refusing, asking a price and getting out of an awkward moment.

English Arabic Say it
Hello سلام salam
Thank you شكراً shukran
Please لو سمحت law samaht
Yes أيوة aywa
No لا la
How much? بكام؟ bekam
Where? فين؟ fein
Good, fine كويس kwayyis
Never mind, it is fine معلش maalesh
Let's go يلا yalla

Greetings and courtesy

The traditional greeting is as-salamu alaykum (السلام عليكم), which means peace be upon you. The reply is fixed: wa alaykum as-salam (وعليكم السلام). It is worth learning both halves, because you will hear the first one aimed at you several times a day and answering correctly is a small, very visible courtesy.

Informally, salam or ahlan (أهلاً) both do the job of hello. In the morning people say sabah el-kheir (صباح الخير), and from early afternoon onwards masa el-kheir (مساء الخير). Leaving, you say ma'a salama (مع السلامة), go in peace.

Please, thank you and sorry

Shukran is thank you and afwan (عفواً) covers both you are welcome and excuse me. For please there are two forms, and this is where a lot of phrasebooks quietly confuse people. Min fadlak (من فضلك) to a man and min fadlik (من فضلِك) to a woman is the more formal version. In everyday Egyptian you will hear law samaht (لو سمحت) far more often, with law samahti (لو سمحتي) to a woman. Either is polite. Use law samaht and you sound local.

To apologise, asif (آسف) if you are a man, asfa (آسفة) if you are a woman. For anything small, a bump in a crowd or a delay, maalesh (معلش) is what Egyptians actually say.

Everyday phrases

Yes is aywa and no is la. To ask how someone is, ezzayak (إزيك) to a man, ezzayik to a woman, same spelling, different final vowel. The answer is kwayyis (كويس) or tamam (تمام), which means everything is fine. To introduce yourself, ana ismi (أنا اسمي) followed by your name, though most Egyptians just say esmi.

Fein is where, and it lands at the end of the sentence in Egyptian, so the bathroom question is el hammam fein? (الحمام فين؟). Fein el hammam also works and everyone will understand you. Water is mayya (ميّة). No problem is mafish mushkila (مفيش مشكلة), a phrase that sums up the national temperament fairly well.

When you do not understand

These four save more situations than any vocabulary list:

  • Mish fahem (مش فاهم), I do not understand. Women say mish fahma (مش فاهمة).
  • Betetkallem ingleezi? (بتتكلم إنجليزي؟), do you speak English?
  • Bishwesh (بشويش), slowly, said with a smile when someone is talking at full speed.
  • Ezzay a'ool...? (إزاي أقول؟), how do you say...? This one turns any stranger into a teacher, and Egyptians love being asked.

Counting from one to a thousand

Numbers matter mostly for prices, and prices are where you will hear Arabic used at you fastest.

1 واحد wahed 6 ستة sitta
2 اتنين itnein 7 سبعة saba'a
3 تلاتة talata 8 تمانية tamanya
4 أربعة arba'a 9 تسعة tisa'a
5 خمسة khamsa 10 عشرة ashara

Above ten, the teens end in a repeated sound that is easy to recognise even when you cannot produce it: hedashar (11), etnashar (12), talattashar (13), on up to tesatashar (19). The tens are eshreen (20), talateen (30), arbeen (40), khamseen (50). A hundred is miyya (مية), two hundred miteen (ميتين), a thousand alf (ألف). Since most things a traveller buys land in the hundreds of Egyptian pounds, miyya and alf are the two you will hear most, and being able to catch khamseen (50) against khumsumiyya (خمسمية, 500) is worth more than perfect grammar. It also helps at ticket windows, where the entrance fees for monuments are quoted in pounds and change from year to year.

Shopping and bargaining

The key question is bekam? (بكام؟), how much, or bekam da? (بكام ده؟) while pointing at something. If the answer seems high, the standard opening move, said with a smile, is ghali awi (غالي أوي), very expensive. That single phrase signals you know the game is on, and it usually gets you a better second number than silence would.

To refuse without any friction, la, shukran (لا شكراً). If someone keeps going, mish ayez (مش عايز) for a man or mish ayza (مش عايزة) for a woman means I do not want it. And when you want to close the negotiation, akhir kalam? (آخر كلام؟) asks whether that is the final word.

One caution the phrasebooks never give you: do not push a bargain in Arabic you cannot follow. Opening in Arabic is charming, but haggling works better in a language where you understand the whole conversation. Use the Arabic for the greeting and the refusal, then switch. Tipping runs on the same social logic as bargaining, so it is worth reading up on tipping and baksheesh before you arrive with only large notes in your wallet.

At the restaurant and the cafe

Ask for the menu with el menu law samaht (المنيو لو سمحت). Water is mayya, but ask specifically for mayya maadaniyya (ميّة معدنية), bottled mineral water, which is what almost every visitor drinks in Egypt for the reasons set out in our note on drinking the tap water.

Tea is shai (شاي) and coffee is ahwa (قهوة), a word that means both the drink and the cafe you drink it in. If you are vegetarian, ana nabati (أنا نباتي), or ana nabatiyya (أنا نباتية) for a woman, prevents a lot of misunderstanding. Min gheir shatta (من غير شطة) asks for food without chilli. At the end, el hisab law samaht (الحساب لو سمحت) is the bill please, and if the food was good, lazeez awi (لذيذ أوي) always lands well.

At the hotel

Andi hagz (عندي حجز) means I have a reservation. A room is oda (أوضة) and the key is muftah (مفتاح). To ask what time breakfast is served, el fitar essa'a kam? (الفطار الساعة كام؟). The pattern essa'a kam works for anything on a clock, so it also gets you the departure time of a tour or a train.

Two more that come up constantly: bokra (بكرة) is tomorrow and delwati (دلوقتي) is now. Egyptians distinguish between them with some flexibility.

Taxis, directions and getting around

Agree the fare before you get in, using bekam and, if needed, ghali awi. Once you are moving, three words steer the car: yemin (يمين) right, shimal (شمال) left, alatool (على طول) straight on. To be dropped off, hena kwayyis (هنا كويس), here is fine.

For orientation, put fein at the end: el matar fein? (المطار فين؟) for the airport, el mahatta fein? (المحطة فين؟) for the station. If you are lost, ana tayeh (أنا تايه) or ana tayha (أنا تايهة) for a woman. Someone will help. Egyptian hospitality is not a marketing line, it is a reliable feature of daily life, and a lost foreigner rarely stays lost for long.

Emergencies, pharmacies and health

Save these numbers in your phone before you travel: 122 police, 123 ambulance, 180 fire, 126 tourist police. You are very unlikely to need any of them, but they belong on your phone rather than in a search result you have to load on a weak signal.

To call for help in the street, Egyptians shout ilha'ni (الحقني), literally catch up with me. The formal word najda (نجدة) is understood but nobody actually uses it. Police is shorta (شرطة) or, more commonly, bolis (بوليس). Hospital is mustashfa (مستشفى) and doctor is doktor (دكتور), which needs no translation anywhere.

The pharmacy is signed as saydaliyya (صيدلية) but everyone calls it the agzakhana (أجزخانة). Egyptian pharmacies are well stocked and easy to deal with for small things like stomach upsets or a sore throat, though anything that worries you belongs with a doctor rather than a counter. If you point at what hurts and say biyewgaani hena (بيوجعني هنا), it hurts here, you will be understood immediately. Check that your travel insurance covers Egypt before you leave home, and follow your own government's travel advice for the areas on your route.

The Arabic in your app is not the Arabic on the street

Most courses and language apps teach Modern Standard Arabic, the language of newspapers, official documents and formal teaching. It is nobody's mother tongue in the street, in Egypt or in any other Arab country. What people speak here is Egyptian Arabic, with its own pronunciation, its own everyday vocabulary and its own set of stock phrases. A greeting learned in Modern Standard will be understood perfectly, but it sounds like a book talking.

The compensation is real. Egyptian Arabic has traditionally been the most widely understood dialect across the Arab world, thanks to a century of Egyptian film, music and television, so the phrases on this page travel well beyond Egypt. And four words said with intent produce an effect out of all proportion to the effort, which is the entire point of learning any of this.

The four sounds that give foreigners trouble

Almost all the difficulty sits in four consonants that English does not have.

  1. ح, a hard breathy H made in the throat, much stronger than an English h. It is in hammam (bathroom) and hisab (bill). Say a normal h and you will still be understood.
  2. خ, a rasping kh, the sound at the end of the German name Bach. It is in sabah el-kheir and khamsa.
  3. ق, a k made far back in the throat. In Egyptian Arabic it usually collapses into a small catch in the voice, the sound in the middle of uh-oh, which makes it easier rather than harder. It is why coffee is ahwa and not qahwa.
  4. ع, a tightening in the throat with no equivalent anywhere in English. It appears in saba'a and arba'a. It is the hardest and the least important. Leave it out and nothing breaks.

The working rule is to pronounce it however you can, confidently. Context carries the rest, and the willingness is appreciated a great deal more than the accuracy.

Four words you will hear all day

These structure ordinary conversation, and you should recognise them even if you never say them.

  • Inshallah (إن شاء الله), God willing. It attaches to any reference to the future, from an appointment to the arrival of a bus. It is not an evasion. It is simply how you talk about something that has not happened yet.
  • Alhamdulillah (الحمد لله), thank God. The standard answer to how are you, and also what people say after a meal or when something works out.
  • Maalesh (معلش), covering never mind, sorry, it does not matter and do not worry about it. Probably the most useful single word in the dialect, and it defuses nearly any small situation.
  • Yalla (يلا), let's go, come on, move. You will hear it constantly and you can use it exactly as everyone else does.

How to use all this without sounding odd

The long greeting is courtesy, not paperwork. Asking how someone is and waiting for the answer before you get to your question is normal here, and skipping it reads as brusque. The gesture matters too: a hand placed briefly on the chest when greeting or thanking someone is common and warmly received.

Forms change depending on whether you are addressing a man or a woman, as you will have noticed throughout this page. Getting it wrong causes no offence at all, but knowing the difference exists stops you being confused when a phrase you learned comes back at you slightly altered. With women, wait for a hand to be offered before you offer yours; in many settings the greeting is verbal only. That instinct for reading the room is the same one behind sensible decisions about what to wear in Egypt.

If you take one habit from this whole page, take this one: learn to say thank you and say it constantly, to the man who carries your bag, the woman who pours your tea, the guard who waves you through. It is the highest return available for the smallest possible effort.

Travelling with a guide who speaks your language

None of this is a substitute for having someone alongside you who handles the language, the ticket queues and the drivers. Our English-speaking guides stay with you throughout, which is what makes our tour packages in Egypt feel less like a logistics exercise and more like a trip. The rest of the practical groundwork, from timing to routes, sits in our guide to planning your trip.

Tell us what you want to see and how long you have, and we will build the route around it. Look through our Egypt itineraries, then message us on WhatsApp at +201032295513 for a plan made for you, booked directly with a local agency in Egypt.